Image Employment

On view September 5–October 7, 2013

Not on view: September 6, 9 (de-installation period);
September 15—26 (NY Art Book Fair)

Invoking the growing convergence between labor, consumption, and that which propels them, Image Employment examines different ways artists use moving image work to investigate contemporary modes of production. The selected works illustrate various approaches to the subject, from observational films that avoid participation in capitalistic image creation, to videos that engage corporate omnipotence by employing its processes, as well as works that complicate these two tendencies.

Many of the films in the exhibition take an oppositional approach to commercial image making. In Kevin Jerome Everson’s Quality Control, African-American workers from an Alabama dry-cleaning factory are shown relentlessly carrying out their jobs in real time. Everson explores the duration and physicality of labor through a series of lengthy shots that draw attention to particular tasks such as working the pant press or ironing shirts.

Alternately, many video works in this exhibition employ corporate processes and communication by reiterating corporate imagery and intervening into sites of emergent industries and globalized consumption. DIS’ Watermarked I Kenzo Fall 2012, for example, arose out of a paid commission for Kenzo’s seasonal menswear collection. The work reflexively dramatizes the commercial advertisement form through the absurd excesses of the actors’ expressions, the politically correct racial composition, and a stock media infused aesthetic.

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The MOVING INDEX is the current platform of ART OFFICE: seeking, sharing and promoting a community around time-based art. Our contributors are active artists and filmmakers around the world posting events, exhibitions, screenings, performances and ideas involving time and temporality. mailroom@artoffice.org